Abstract
Historically, urban parks have been considered the “lungs” of the city. 1 Both physically and metaphorically, this fact has proven true. These green spaces provide opportunities for people to get away from the bustle of daily life, rest, and reinvigorate themselves. Never has the need for park systems been so clear in the American consciousness than in the time following the coronavirus outbreak. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdown demonstrated to the world the importance of an accessible park system, the mental and physical health benefits of outdoor exercise and recreation, the power of community engagement and activism, and the need to preserve our natural resources.
During the lockdown, in ever increasing numbers, people sought opportunities to isolate themselves in nature through socially distanced hiking, biking, walking, and running outdoors. One New Yorker wrote about his daily walks in Central Park; he stated that the park has “become a place New Yorkers want to be. The timing couldn’t have been better. While many of us are experiencing fear and anxiety about what’s going on around us, a walk in the park is more important now than it has ever been.”
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When faced with park closures which barred access to these resources, people vigorously advocated for reopening and safe access. On May 26, 2021, the National Parks Conservation Association stated, Over the last year, the importance of the National Park System has never been clearer. Our nation has come to a new appreciation of what our outdoor environments can do for us, both mentally and physically . . . As parks reopened, visitors came to the park system seeking the respite our shared natural and cultural treasures often provide.
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Historians Robert O. Binnewies and Jennifer Ott echo the NPCA’s views that, when and where urban park systems are available, people flock to them seeking a respite, enrichment, and education; these historians also establish park systems as a study worthy of historical examination. Historian Colin Fisher has discussed the ways in which park-goers “remake the park, appropriating it for themselves, investing the land with new meaning, and transforming a restrictive recreational landscape into an extraordinary public space.” 4 Parks become sites of contest, activism, memorialization, health, education, and development through their creation, maintenance, and use. Binneweis and Ott examine a specific park system in order to illuminate broader trends in urban history and parks and recreation. In Palisades and Olmsted in Seattle, Binnewies and Ott explore the larger themes around access to parks and the role of women’s activism. Binneweis, an American conservationist, focuses on the Palisades Interstate Park System as a “conservation experiment” which began as a grassroots fight against a rock quarry, later influenced the “nationwide conservation agenda,” and even resulted in the establishment of the National Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency. 5 Ott discusses Olmsted’s impact on the development of Seattle, Seattle park system, and the landscape architecture field at large.
Binneweis’ and Ott’s work converge on the interconnected issues of transportation and park access. Both historians write about the legacy of Olmsted’s parkway ideas. Olmsted, who first developed a park and boulevard system in Buffalo, believed that “parks connected to each other via parkways could provide easy access to nature, opportunities for recreation, and places to promenade and gather and could help provide an overarching vision for the organization of a city’s business and residential districts” (Ott, 12). The Palisades Interstate Parkway became an “artful link between city and park, envisioned for decades” (Binneweis, 216). The Palisades Interstate Parkway offers an opportunity for drivers to pass through “a green corridor looping along the contours of rolling terrain, passing under stone bridges of elegant style, meandering through a linear park of trees and flowers.” Ott highlights how, in Seattle, parkways made parks and natural beauty available to the public too. She ties the construction of parkways to the movement to preserve and protect cultural landscapes nationwide.
Through an examination of the parkway system, both Binneweis and Ott grappled with the tension between preserving natural resources and developing them for public use. Building parkways is inherently destructive—it changes the landscapes that conservationists work so hard to preserve and protect. However, building parkways also builds in access. The parkway introduced a new kind of access and a new kind of park which could be experienced from within a car, built on earlier traditions. Domenico Annese writes that “The Sunday afternoon drive in a horse and buggy was a favorite pastime” and that parkways could “bring that pastime to the masses” as they drove on these new roadways. 6 Historian Timothy Davis has argued that the development of the American motor parkways was one of the most significant landscape achievements of the twentieth century. 7
In an urban space, it can be difficult for children to access outdoor recreation in nature; this lack of access has prompted creative attempts to increase access. Historian Ann Buttenwieser has written on the historic exclusion of New York City residents from the water by 19th and 20th century urban planners and her fight to “build a floating pool and donate it to the city for use by recreationally underserved” urban children. 8 Both Binneweis and Ott explore themes of access (especially children’s access) in the context of park development. Binneweis explores the importance and ever changing nature of access by examining children’s camps while Ott focuses on the impact of the nationwide playground movement on the city of Seattle.
In developing Palisades Interstate Park, the Palisades Interstate Park Commission (PIPC) created a new type of park (something in between a Central Park and the wilderness) with new types of access and engagement. Binneweis recounts the active decision by the PIPC to make a connection between the “nation’s most densely populated metropolitan region” and a developing part in an “increasingly vast swatch of woodland” (Binnweis, 78). Binneweis’s narrative establishes the importance of park access to children’s development. He places great focus on the use of camps and parklands to introduce inner city children to nature. Historian Leslie Paris has written on how summer camps helped solidify childhood as a playful and protected time apart. Camp became a place and time of community building, nationalization, education, and- later in life- a source of nostalgia (9).
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Binneweis states that camps in parklands were inner city children’s first opportunity to step away, even for a moment, from the crash and contest of the city to hike along forest paths, climb to scenic vistas, learn about trees, plants, wild birds and animals, swim in lakes, invent toyless games, watch campfires blaze, listen to strange night sounds, and soak in the experience of nature. (Binneweis, 78-79)
While Binneweis maintains the importance of preserving nature for future generations, it is not a pristine, untouched nature. He also touches on the necessity of creating a built environment in order to encourage public use (and children’s access) within parks. He also discusses the addition of playgrounds, concessions, hotels, educational trail systems, and museums. His writing on the subject does illuminate this inherent tension between preservation of natural resources and development to promote engagement with nature.
Ott examines issues of access from a different perspective—she focuses on the nationwide playground movement and children’s access to playgrounds. Unlike Binnewies, Ott chronicles a situation in which park development and city planning operated in tandem, with women advocating to build in opportunities for children to access outdoor recreation. Ott’s treatment of access shows the role of women in park development. Ott argues that the public supported park development because they believed “access to parks improved the moral character of poor people” (Ott, 62). It is no secret that women were the driving force behind the establishment of many parks across the United States. Historian Polly Welts Kaufman argues that “many parks owe their very existence to women or groups of women who founded them or were long-time advocates for a particular park.” 10 Kaufman explores the women explorers, advocates, founders, rangers, naturalists, and park service wives who helped shape the nation’s park systems. Binneweis and Ott contribute to this larger conversation by examining the role of women in the foundation of the Palisades Interstate Park System and the Seattle park system; Binneweis analyzes the ways in which women contributed to the Palisades Interstate Park system and their struggle for a memorial, Ott dives deeper into the mobilization of women’s resources in service of the playground movement.
The Playground Movement grew out of the Progressive Era’s efforts to improve American life. Suzanne Spencer-Wood has written about how women’s organizations worked with men to create early playgrounds in Boston; these playgrounds were designed to confer the women’s values to their children.
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Outside of Boston, women negotiated with men on issues of urban landscapes to secure this access for their children. In Seattle, Olmsted’s recommendations regarding playground development occurred against the larger backdrop of the national playground movement. Ott writes how “public playgrounds were needed for social and moral development, particularly for immigrant and working class children” (Ott, 94). Historian Lawrence Culver has shed light on how the masses were encouraged to visit parks, including playgrounds, in order to keep the public physically and morally active, thus producing productive members of society and teaching immigrants to properly socialize their children.
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Parks became a space in which people were continuously enacting identity. In Seattle, the Seattle Federation of Women’s Clubs came before the park board to advocate for playground development for their children in 1907, while the board lacked the budget, they suggested the federation could raise funds. Ott reveals that, in 1908, playground supervisors were hired to instill moral values in children through organizing games and encouraging sportsmanship. Ott writes about the tension between the school board and the park commissioners. While both wanted playgrounds, the school board wanted the park board to develop, maintain, and supervise children’s playgrounds, while the park commissioners refused to take responsibility for playgrounds attached to schools. Seattle women advocated for their children’s access to playgrounds and the moral/physical health benefits they were believed to confer. The Women’s Century Club met with the school board to discuss playgrounds and provided examples of how park commissioners in Los Angeles and Chicago had dealt with playgrounds. The Green Lake Improvement Club also inquired about playgrounds. Ott states, It is noteworthy that the women representing these groups are the first to appear in the public record relative to the park system’s development. This is likely because of the playgrounds’ association with children’s development, which was considered part of women’s sphere in the gendered division of public life in that era. (Ott, 94)
Access and exclusion are two sides of the same coin; examining these issues together gives historians greater insight into the context in which parks were created, maintained, used, and policed. Binneweis’ work is strengthened by his nuanced treatment of access. Access (and the idea of who should be able to access parks, which portion of the park they should be allowed to utilize, and how they should arrive or enjoy the parks) changed over the course of the development and maintenance of the Palisades Interstate Park System. Binnewies provides a frank look at the changing regulations regarding camping (in reference to race and gender) in different areas of the park and the establishment of summer camps. Binneweis’ work enters into a larger dialogue within the history of parks and recreation. Historian Lucy Levine has written about how nineteenth-century ideas about public health and social democracy have shaped the original purpose of Central Park. Her work speaks to the Olmstedian idea of Central Park as a public health initiative. Her work also speaks to the belief that, to Olmsted and the park board, not all classes of people knew how to properly enjoy the park and, thus, should be barred from enjoying certain activities while at the park. Levine writes, “this distinction between contemplation and recreation was class based.” 13 Olmsted and his colleagues created policies to limit recreation and sports within the park and even employed a special police brigade to ensure compliance. Wealthy park goers were allowed to enjoy, while working class and immigrant New Yorkers were strictly policed. Historian William E. O’Brien’s work on segregation in parks dives even deeper into these themes of access and exclusion. O’Brien writes about institutionalized racism in the park system during the 1930s and the means by which African American visitors were routinely and officially denied entrance to sites in the American South. 14 Culver also engaged with issues of segregation in a discussion about swimming pools, county parks, and beaches in Los Angeles; he argued that “while African Americans and other people of color fought back against white attempts to control recreational space, they also created their own places of leisure.” 15 While Ott’s discussion of playground development is enlightening, and while she does touch briefly on the issue of class and access, she does not examine the influence of race or gender on access. Her lack of engagement with these issues does represent a missed opportunity. Today, issues of adolescent exclusion and access remain relevant. One research project on urban youth, conducted by Youth Voices for Change, notes that urban adolescents felt unwelcome in their public parks. Their resulting activism led to a park redesign with the input of local adolescents. 16 In Seattle in particular, new concerns about access and exclusion have arisen as gentrification has swept through the city.
Binneweis also discusses the integral role women played in park development. He analyzes the often overlooked role of New Jersey women in the development of Palisades Interstate Park. Ultimately, he places the credit for the park system with Elizabeth Vermilye. He states, This was a man’s world; men decided things, so little attention was paid in 1896 when seventeen women gathered at the home of Mrs. John A. Wells to form the Englewood Women’s club, a new chapter of the statewide New Jersey Federation of Women’s Clubs. (Binneweis, 9)
These women spoke before groups, lobbied legislators, wrote to newspapers, hosted gatherings, and ultimately attracted the attention of Theodore Roosevelt, the newly elected governor of New York. He gives credit to specific women, such as Elizabeth Vermilye, who presided over the first meeting of the League for Preservation of the Palisades, spent time “pounding the halls in Trenton, attending hearings and buttonholing legislators,” and enlisted the help of Theodore Roosevelt (Binneweis, 23). Binneweis’ treatment of women in park development is strengthened by his treatment of his sources. During his research, he actively sought out their voices and drew evidence from pamphlets and periodicals published by the Englewood Woman’s Club, reports from the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs, and correspondence between female activists and PIPC members and public officials. Binneweis also sheds light on the New Jersey women’s fight to memorialize the role they played in saving the cliffs at Palisades. They raised funds, lobbied for a site, and donated land to the Commission for decades before any official recognition would come. He also draws attention to the impact of women in education, performance, and leadership roles at the camp programs and on the PIPC.
When entered into conversation with each other, Palisades and Olmsted in Seattle are particularly revealing as Binneweis analyzes a system in which park planning and development occurred around and outside of the major city (New York), while Ott examines a city (Seattle) developing in conversation with park planning. New York City already had a bustling, thriving population; the main drive in acquiring and developing park space was to provide opportunities for engagement with nature, create a recreational outlet, and improve the general health and morale of residents who had already settled in the city. While New York City already had internal park space (such as Central Park), Binneweis’ narrative focuses on park building- in cooperation with neighboring states- around major metropolitan areas. By contrast, Ott’s narrative focuses on Seattle, a city which was still young and growing. The city of Seattle developed in tandem with its park system. In Olmsted in Seattle, Ott argues that one of the major driving forces behind park development in Seattle was the need to attract and keep residents. Olmsted argued that the city needed to be attractive enough for people to settle, make their fortunes, and remain in Seattle; parks, playgrounds, and events were designed to show the city in its most attractive light. This argument is most clearly encapsulated within her discussion of the City Beautiful Movement and the Alaska-Yukon Pacific Exposition World’s Fair of 1909. She describes a pervasive sense of urgency as the city rushed to have enough parks and parkways developed before the Exposition in June of 1909. Binneweis’ and Ott’s work on the past can inform our understanding of present urbanscapes. Many present-day communities are still facing issues of exclusion and access to parks and other urban resources. In both New York and Seattle, ongoing gentrification impacts who is able to utilize these spaces and what resources are available to communities. Lauren Mullenbach and Birgitta Baker conducted a systematic review to assess publications around gentrification and parks and recreation literature; they found that very little leisure scholarship, resulting in the opportunity for leisure scholars to engage with environmental justice (and gentrification) debates . 17 Similarly, Binneweis’ and Ott’s work reinforces the importance of women’s activism and advocacy. They both highlight cases in which women were active agents of history and brought about real change for themselves, their children, their communities, and their environment. Telling their stories—especially in their own words—furthers their legacy and deepens our understanding of the past.